Claude Julien and Peter Chiarelli don't see a need for a change in the way the Bruins play after losing to the Canadiens. They just think they need to play better.

By Dan CagenDaily News staff

May 17, 2014
2:52 p.m.

BOSTON — Gary Bettman’s dream has the Bruins and Canadiens meeting over and over in the playoffs, bringing eyeballs by the millions to television sets throughout the United States and Canada.

The new playoff format makes that a likely possibility. Both clubs are set up for success for years to come, and an early May commute between Boston and Montreal can be written in pencil as long as teams have to get out of their division to reach the conference finals.

Based on the Bruins’ recent history with the Canadiens, that could be concerning. Since Marc Bergevin became Montreal general manager in 2012, the Habs have won 10-of-15 meetings, including a seven-game series victory in the second round that ended the Bruins’ previously wonderful season early.

The Bruins do not believe they need to adapt to fit the Canadiens and all their speed. Actually, they think it was playing closer to that style, and getting away from what they do so well, that led to their downfall at the end of the series.

The Bruins want to attack as one unit. They do not emphasize the stretch pass. A defenseman hits the center curling back through the defensive zone, goes hard up the boards or back to his defensive partner. Rare is the time when a blue liner looks far up ice for a home run pass.

“We’re a strong team when we have five guys in each zone and come up the ice together,” injured forward Chris Kelly said Friday. “It makes our forecheck go. It makes our defensive game go. It makes the neutral zone go. We got away from that the last two games.”

The Bruins achieved their peak in Game 1. They got speed through the neutral zone and set up their offense. Milan Lucic and Jarome Iginla rammed the Habs’ smaller defensemen down low. They pounded Carey Price with rubber 51 times. They lost in double overtime.

“Against Montreal, if you look at Game 1 — which I thought was the best game we played — speed wasn’t an issue either,” coach Claude Julien said. “We were never able to recapture that Game 1. Even if we didn’t get the results that we got, I thought Game 1, we were by far the better team, and it wasn’t a matter of speed, it wasn’t a matter of anything. So that’s why I say I want to be careful in the assessment of our team and about why don’t we get guys blowing the zone.”

In Games 6 and 7, the Canadiens went to work when the Bruins at times abandoned their system and played more like the Habs. Falling behind early in Games 3, 6 and 7 forced them off their game, the Bruins took gambles defensively. They did not pay off.

Dougie Hamilton going for a hit on Lars Eller in Game 3 gave P.K. Subban a breakaway exploding out of the penalty box. Later that same night, Andrej Meszaros was caught flat-footed after Mike Weaver blocked his shot and Dale Weise was off to the races for a back-breaking goal.

In Game 7, the Bruins started breaking out of their defensive zone before they'd cleared the puck. But then Patrice Bergeron whiffed on the breakout pass and Max Pacioretty scored the winning goal on a 2-on-1.

“It’s a fine line you’re walking if you’re blowing the zone all the time,” Gregory Campbell said. “You’re leaving the rest of your teammates exposed if there’s a breakdown. You saw on the one goal, the second goal [in Game 7], we were going the other way and the puck was turned over. Breakdowns like that happen. They found a way to work for them. But sometimes you can get burned, too.”

That formula works for the Habs. They’re OK with playing without the puck — coach Michel Therrien asks a ton of Carey Price, their defensemen will get in front of shots, and the forwards turn those blocks into breakaways the other way, bursters like Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher and Rene Bourque taking advantage.

As different as Black-and-Gold is to the eyes from Bleu-Blanc-et-Rouge, so too is the Bruins’ plan of attack from Montreal’s. Their rosters have been built differently. The Bruins have big, grinding forwards like Bergeron, Milan Lucic and Carl Soderberg. They have strong defensemen like Zdeno Chara, Johnny Boychuk, Dennis Seidenberg, Kevan Miller and (eventually) Dougie Hamilton. They want to play with structure and with the puck.

General manager Peter Chiarelli will not stray from that approach. It’s the same one that has won the Bruins a Stanley Cup, eight playoff series the last four years and the Presidents’ Trophy this season.

There will be some changes. The fourth line could get more mobility, as could the defense. Fresher legs will allow for the Bruins to better keep up when the Habs do attack.

But it will still be Zdeno Chara, and Bergeron, and David Krejci, and most of the players who have worn the Spoked-B for a half-decade or more. With better execution, the franchise believes it can beat the Habs and go all the way again.

So as Chiarelli looks at the Jenga puzzle that is a hockey roster and corresponding system, he does not see the need to tear it all down. A few pieces will be replaced, the structure will stay the same and the Bruins will try to win another Stanley Cup before the Chara-laid foundation is no more.

“We didn’t play our best,” Julien said. “We know that. Maybe like Peter said, we were maybe expecting some guys to be back and they weren’t, so we were maybe a little bit young [on defense]. We did hit 10-12 posts. If some of those go in, are we sitting here talking about this today? There’s a lot of reasons. You got to have puck luck, you got to have a lot of things.

“So for me, is it really about — all of a sudden we lost to Montreal, we need to overhaul in that? No, I think we need to look at the things that we need to tweak here and there, like Peter said, and make those kind of adjustments.”